Collections Intern at the Museum of the American Revolution
Job Title: Collections Intern
Job Status: 29 Hours/week, Mid-June through Mid-August
Job Location: Philadelphia, PA
Salary: $15/hr
Collections Intern
The Museum of the American Revolution is seeking a Collections Intern for Summer 2022 on site in Philadelphia. This internship is funded by the Decorative Arts Trust as part of their IDEAL Internship Initiative, which focuses on inclusivity, diversity, equity, access, and leadership to improve access to curatorial careers and mentorship for students of color as a path toward achieving comprehensive change in the museum field.
Internship Responsibilities
The IDEAL intern will work on three primary projects during the internship period to augment the Museum’s efforts to present an inclusive story of the Revolution by enhancing institutional knowledge about objects in the Museum’s collection. The intern will be supervised by the Curator of Collections; the Museum’s Director of Education and Community Engagement and its African American Interpretive Fellow will serve as mentors.
• Internal collections research: Working with a list of “likely suspects,” the intern will research whether key objects in the collection, particularly objects on display in the core exhibition whose provenances are linked to white individuals, have additional histories associated with individuals of African descent or Native Americans. The intern will create new object descriptions or enhance existing object descriptions in the Museum’s collections database, on its website, and in research files.
• George Washington’s War Tent: Among the most iconic artifacts of the Revolution, the tent is the office and sleeping quarters that Washington used as the Continental Army’s command center. The tent is now on view at the Museum as part of a multimedia presentation exploring its history during the Revolutionary era and beyond. While Washington’s history with the tent is well-documented, less is known about individuals of African descent associated with the tent, including William Lee, Washington’s enslaved valet; Hannah Archer Till, his cook; and Selina Gray, who safeguarded the tent after its capture during the Civil War. The intern will research these individuals and look for objects that might also be associated with them.
• Replacement Loan/Acquisition Objects: The Museum is slated to return specific objects in the core gallery that are associated with African American and Native American history as we approach 2026. The intern will research and create a list of potential replacement objects for purchase or loan.
The IDEAL intern will also participate in key components of the Museum’s Diversify Living History Initiative Summer Youth Internship Program. Outcomes of the intern’s work may be featured on the Museum’s social media, highlighted on a “Discovery Cart” interactive mobile station or via other in-museum educational offerings, and shared in presentations to member groups, like the Museum’s Young Friends program.
The IDEAL internship runs for 10 weeks from mid-June through mid-August, with flexible start and end dates. The intern will be expected to work 29 hours per week. Hourly rate is $15.
Qualifications
• Must be a student of color seeking a museum career
• Must be currently enrolled in pursuit of an undergraduate degree
• Knowledge of American history; knowledge of or interest in Revolutionary-era history is a plus
• Previous experience working at a museum is a plus
• Good attention to detail is required
• Experience with primary and secondary source research is preferred
• Comfortable with databases, Google Docs and Sheets, and with Dropbox
To Apply
• Please submit a cover letter and resume to internships@amrevmuseum.org.
• Application deadline: April 1 at 11:59 p.m.
• Only applications with all required documents submitted by the deadline will be considered.
• Additional documents, such as writing samples, may be requested during the interviewing process for select programs.